Jorge Ramos Misstates the Facts in Attempt to Counter Trump on Birthright Citizenship

Since being thrown out of Donald Trump's press conference in Iowa last week, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos has undertaken a full-blown propaganda campaign designed to portray Trump's stated intention to end birthright citizenship as creating a situation where "terror would necessarily reign" in "Trumpland". According to Ramos, all current and future children born to aliens in the United States will be stateless with no passports and no home countries. However, what Ramos conveniently ignores is that the home countries of illegal alien children born in the United States, commonly referred to as "anchor babies", recognize them as citizens regardless of where the kids are born.

So when Ramos, who has dual Mexican and American citizenship, asks "What if a child's father was from Mexico and his mother was from Honduras? Where do you deport a kid without a country or a passport?" he knows full-well that both countries recognize the child and will grant the child citizenship and a passport. Thus, in his scenario, the child could have two nationalities and two passports — Mexican based on the father's nationality and Honduran based on the mother's nationality. Therefore, these kids would not be stateless; in fact, they could have two states.

Mr. Ramos also conveniently ignores the fact that Mexico actively encourages Mexican children born in the United States to become dual Mexican-American citizens as quickly as possible. According to a report by the San Jose Mercury News:

"Foreign Born Mexican Citizens" — a process that has been greatly promoted by the Mexican government and its consulates around the world and can take as little as 30 minutes.

According to Consul General Carlos Ponce Martinez, Mexico recognizes any child born to Mexicans abroad as a citizen, but they have to register in Mexico or at a Mexican Consulate.

"By holding a Mexican birth certificate, they have the same rights as their brothers born on Mexican soil, including the right to the Mexican presidency, even if they are not born on Mexican soil," Ponce said.

Those with dual citizenship also have the right to vote in Mexican elections and retain other benefits such as scholarships, free education, public health services and the right for the Mexican government to garnish a parents' wages for child support.

So if Trump were to succeed in ending birthright citizenship, the children of illegal aliens would still have the citizenship of their parents, just as Mexican, Honduran, or American children born in Germany or China obtain the citizenship of their parents, despite that fact that Germany and China (and most other nations) do not recognize birthright citizenship. These kids will be able to obtain the appropriate citizenship documents through their countries' consular offices and get passports. An American child born there wouldn't receive German or Chinese citizenship, but his parents are still able to obtain a "consular report of birth abroad" and/or an American passport.

So Ramos is clearly being a propagandist rather than a journalist when he asserts that children born in the United States to illegal aliens (or even tourists or foreign students or workers) would be stateless, since they would have the citizenship of their parents and they could return to their countries of citizenship or travel around the world on passports issued by the countries where they are citizens.

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization founded in 1985. It is the nation's only think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States.